RE: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1 year

["Dominik Filipp" <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>]

George,

well, agreed on many your counts here. Just one remark, we still can
distinguish between the NSI practice and standard domain tasting in that
NSI trades on the AGP to force potential registrants performing whois
lookup on their site to buy a domain of interest at them, for the NSI
standard price $35, though. Sure, some tasting registrars can misuse the
NSI-looking page (pharming) to grab names but this is relatively
unlikely unless you do not take care about the domain address of the
'pharmer'. After all, this may happen to many other entities, such as
banks, paypal, various private sensitive services, etc.
But the important difference here is that NSI does not utilize PPC
advertising, does not auction or otherwise speculate with grabbed names
and is eventually willing to sell such grabbed domains for standard NSI
prices. The problem is a new deceptive way of exploiting AGP, which is
forcing the victims to buy such domains only at NSI. Something we have
not seen before and something that may perhaps become similarly
malicious in result as domain tasting itself. If not stopped, it is
likely that other registrars will be encouraged to do the same as this
practice currently gives NSI an advantage over other registrars. As a
result, the registrants will become victims impelled to register domains
at registrar at which they did the first (and last) whois lookup.

Both practices have one thing in common, exploiting the AGP. Elimination
of the AGP seems to be more and more the most effective solution to
avoid both and all similar AGP-related practices. That is something we
both can agree upon.

Dominik


-----Original Message-----
From: George Kirikos [mailto:gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 2:50 PM
To: Dominik Filipp; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: twomey@xxxxxxxxx; roberto@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1
year

Hi Dominik,

--- Dominik Filipp <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> we could perhaps find a better solution. To distinguish between the 
> two things, NSI and domain tasting, and address them accordingly.

That's the problem, though, that there's no basis upon which to
distinguish the two things. It encourages an arms race amongst
registrars, which destabilizes the registration system.

Consider the case now in the courts between Dell and Belgium Domains:

http://www.domainnamenews.com/legal-issues/dell-computer-vs-trademark-in
fringing-domainers/1323

In theory, a phantom registrar who wanted to take advantage of the AGP
loophole can point to the NSI example, and then have phantom clients
performing phantom searches, leading to phantom cart holds. I do not
believe ICANN will start auditing registrar webserver logs, or would
have any basis to do so.
 
> In the NSI case ICANN should send an official cease-and-desist letter 
> to stop the practice.
> In case of domain tasting to follow the existing policy development 
> process and to find a fundamental solution, e.g. the cancellation of 
> AGP, which, by the way, has gained the majority support in the 
> contributor's straw poll.

I'm glad we agree, as does the majority, on what the fundamental
solution is, namely elimination of the AGP, either directly or
indirectly by making it uneconomic for mass-automated purposes. It's
just a matter of the ICANN Board finally deciding to take action now,
while the PDP crawls forward.

Think of the headlines and positive PR -- "ICANN takes decisive action
to halt front-running." Time to seize a golden opportunity to do
something right. I'd love to know which Board members would actually
vote *against* doing so -- I suspect it would be a unanimous vote to end
the practice, perhaps with a few abstentions for those who have
conflicts with registry operators.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/